INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (AP) — Roger Federer dominated Jack Sock in a 6-3, 6-2 victory to reach the quarterfinals at the BNP Paribas Open on Wednesday, with the four-time tournament champion winning 14 consecutive points in the second set.
Federer has yet to drop a set in three matches so far, needing 69 minutes to polish off Sock and earn his 50th match win at Indian Wells.
“Today was by far my best match, so I’m very happy how I was serving, in particular, when it was important,” Federer said. “On the return I was able to play both with the slice coming over and then even standing back. All three things worked. When that’s the case, it’s great as a player to know you have all these options when it comes down to the crunch.”
Three-time Indian Wells champion Novak Djokovic played a late match.
Top-ranked Serena Williams advanced to the semifinals with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Timea Bacsinszky, extending the American’s winning streak to 15 matches in her return to the desert after ending a 14-year boycott of the tournament.
Bacsinszky had her 15-match winning streak snapped, although her 21-3 record leads the WTA Tour this year. She broke to take a 3-1 lead in the opening set before Williams tied it up 3-all and then held for a 4-3 lead.
Bacsinszky held for 5-all and had two break points in the next game, but she committed two straight forehand errors. Williams held and then broke in the next game to take the set.
The second set featured four straight breaks of serve before Williams won four of the final five games.
Sock had one highlight game, holding serve at 2-all in the first set after facing two break points and nine deuces. But Federer won four of the next five games to wrap up the set.
“Obviously I needed to serve very well, if not my best, to give me a chance,” Sock said. “He’s done this many times and makes you play a lot of balls.”
Federer broke Sock to open the second set, winning the final point of the first game. That launched a run of 14 straight points as Federer served two love games sandwiched around a break of Sock, giving the Swiss star a 4-0 lead.
Sock fought off three break points to trail 4-1. Federer lost just two points in his last two service games.
Rafael Nadal advanced with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Gilles Simon to stay on track for a shot at his fourth career title in the desert.
Nadal next plays sixth-seeded Milos Raonic, who defeated 17th-seeded Tommy Robredo 6-3, 6-2 in a fourth-round match.
Nadal served a love game to close out his match that began as a dust storm swirled outside the stadium under overcast skies. He connected on 70 percent of his first serves in beating Simon for the seventh time in eight meetings.
“He’s a player that is tough, because sometimes you feel that you have the match under control, but he’s able to be back,” Nadal said. “He’s able to play very well in defending positions, and then from defending position, he’s able to come back and have the control of the point. Is a good victory for me.”
Andy Murray defeated Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 6-3 for his 496th career match victory. He tied countryman Tim Henman’s record as Britain’s most successful player in the Open era.
Murray set up a quarterfinal against 12th-seeded Feliciano Lopez, who upset No. 5 seed Kei Nishikori, 6-4, 7-6 (2).
Third-seeded Simona Halep rallied to beat No. 12 Carla Suarez Navarro, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 and will face Williams in the semifinals. The Romanian is the most recent player to beat Williams last fall at the WTA Finals in Singapore.
Halep trailed 4-0 in the first set and said she was nervous to start the match.
“Then I changed my tactic a little bit just to play more into the court and to play more aggressive, to open the court more, and to take the ball very fast,” she said. “I wanted to try just to make her run a lot because I know that she’s moving well and she’s hitting really well close to the body. So I tried just to open the court and to finish the points very quickly.”
Murray broke Mannarino twice in the second set and closed it out on his second match point when Mannarino netted a backhand. Murray remains on track for a potential semifinal against Djokovic, who beat the Brit in the Australian Open final in January.
No. 9 Tomas Berdych advanced with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victory over No. 27 Lukas Rosol in all-Czech match. Bernard Tomic beat wild card Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
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